Sherriff - No Law To Lay Down

Gary Sherriff has said he's delighted with the shape and fitness levels of the players as they returned for pre season tests yesterday.

The testing period held yesterday for the players will determine exactly what stage they are at and how much time, and workload, is needed to get them into peak condition for the coming Championship season, and the sports scientist who assists Jim Henry in our fitness work has said he was very impressed to see the players maintain their focus in the off season, because they have all come back in a good shape, and it of course means the club can spend less time on the physical elements, and get to ball work and tactics far more quickly.

Speaking to the Official Site after all the measurements and bleep tests etc were done, Sherriff explained.

'There has been a mixture of boys who have done well and some who have a wee bit to go, but on the whole things have gone pretty well. We've had some personal bests in the jump tests we have the players doing and there have been some pretty good sprints too. We'll have a look at the data from the aerobic tests later and see what they tell us but our first impression is things are fairly positive. We're pleased with what we've seen so far and there's nothing which jumps out at us as being particularly alarming.'

To be fair in professional football now, the days of players returning completely out of shape are long over, and with the individual fitness programmes each player has to follow in the off season, anybody returning too far off where they would be expected to be, can look forward to disciplinary measures, but having gained successive promotions in the last few seasons, the players returning in good shape shows we have no complacency ahead of the new campaign.